Wearable Boarding Pass Hints At Samsung’s App Ambitions

As Samsung Electronics builds its case for wrist-mounted devices to a skeptical market, you can add one more idea to the list: smartwatch as boarding pass.

Wearable boarding pass app from Samsung and Iberia

Iberia

Samsung and Spanish airline Iberia released an app for the Korean company’s Gear 2 smartwatch, which they say allows passengers to present their boarding pass on their wrist, “without needing anything else to do.”

Airplane passengers have already been using their smartphones in this fashion for years, of course. And there’s no accounting for a fussy airline official at the check-in desk who may want to see more documentation.

The feature also isn’t likely to be groundbreaking enough to make a smartwatch buyer out of a skeptic.

But more broadly, the Iberia boarding pass app offers a taste of what Samsung may be looking for as it seeks to beef up the ecosystem of software and services around its devices — a key step in differentiating its products from those of its competitors.

The push is particularly important around its new Gear 2 smartwatch, which unlike Samsung’s other flagship products doesn’t run on Google’s Android operating system. Instead, it runs on a homegrown operating system that it is backing called Tizen.

Last month, Samsung released a software development kit for Tizen wearables, giving third-party app developers the tools to build software and services for the fledgling operating system.

And on Thursday, the Korean company announced a total pot of $1.25 million, with $100,000 going to the first place winner in a challenge to spur on interest from app developers and “vitalize the wearable app market.”

The company has been all over the map trying to drum up interest among app developers. In April and May alone, the company is hosting developer events in Singapore, Malaysia, Brazil and Korea.

Update: This post has been updated to include details about Samsung’s attempts to spur interest from app developers.